News Corp and Softbank team up in Japan | 20 June |
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Softbank Corporation announced late Thursday that they will acquire Obunsha Media. This in turn will give the two a 21.4% share in Japan's Asahi National Broadcasting, the company that operates the national TV Asahi network. The two companies are paying 41.75 billion yen ($390 million) for Obunsha Media, which is currently owned by parent company Obunsha Corporation, a Japanese publisher. The subsidiary is the largest shareholder in Asahi National Broadcasting after Toei Corporation, with 14.6%, and the Asahi Shimbun newspaper company, with 10.0%. TV Asahi is one of four national commercial TV networks in Japan. The purchase will enable the two companies, which have not previously worked so closely together, to begin a range of ventures in Japan that combine broadcasting, publishing, and computer technology. News Corporation last week announced it was to launch a digital directto-home (DTH) satellite TV service in Japan within the next two years. The company's only other experience in the Japanese market has been the Star TV Japan channel which launched in April. News Corporation owns large chunks of Star TV in Hong Kong, which operates a multi-channel TV package across Asia, British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) in the UK, which operates a 26 channel DTH service in the UK, and American Sky Broadcasting (ASkyB) soon to launch a digital DTH service in the US. It also has many interests in newspaper and book publishing, making it one of the biggest media companies in the world. Softbank Corporation is Japan's largest distributor and producer of computer software and computer magazines and owns Ziff Davis Publishing, a major American computer magazine publisher, plus has numerous other interests in the US mostly related to Internet ventures, including a stake in the Yahoo directory service. It has several joint ventures with companies such as Yahoo, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone and Microsoft. With its aggressive moves in the Internet business sector over the past year many have called the company Japan's Microsoft. (Martyn Williams/19960620)
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From the NEWSBYTES news service, 20 June |